what do you see?

That previous post was really intended as a test...but since it was so swiftly commented on I'll have to leave it!

So here's a brief run-down of our Tokyo trip. I think aliental's going to be doing a more detailed account of his trip here once he's back in the UK (he should be somewhere over Russia right now), so I'll leave most of it to him. But I want to put some of my pictures on anyway:

Monday
Dropped of our stuff at our hotel (Tokyo Green Hotel Ochanomizu) and then headed for Akihabara - saw and in fact shopped in the new, huge, Yodobashi Camera. Then went to Asakusa for a bit of touristy stuff.

After that we came back to the hotel and looked around Ochanomizu, the bookshops in Jinbocho etc.

In the evening went out to Shinjuku - basically the Hub (British pub) in Kabukicho as it's pretty much the only place I know off hand.

Tuesday
Spent the morning in Koishikawa Korakuen, my favourite Japanese garden in Tokyo.

Then to Harajuku for some serious shopping...and on to Shibuya for more shopping.
In the evening I met a friend in Shinagawa and experienced some nicely packed trains on the Yamanote line on the way home.

Wednesday
Saw Asimo in the Honda centre:



And then had a walk through Aoyama cemetery and then a peer around Nogi shrine where General Nogi and his wife famously committed suicide after the death of the Meiji emperor in 1912. An interesting morning, not as morbid as it sounds.

Then down to and through Roppongi...
up to Tokyo Tower (but not up it) where the range of tacky souvenirs was stunning...
on to Daimon and some interesting temples...
and finally to Tokyo Station, the Marunouchi building for a good view from the 35th floor, and a brief rainy walk to the edge of the Imperial Palace.
We had a 1 hour delay once we got on the plane, but it was OK as we were lucky enough to be on one of the ANA Pikachu planes!

Hmm

aliental is in Japan at the moment. We went to Tokyo together earlier this week, for a 3-day see-as-much-as-possible rush-around. It was good, and I'll tell all a bit later. Felt freezing when we got back here though.

Well..since that last entry 11 days ago (sorry!) things have moved on a lot...cherry trees have busted out in full bloom and are still looking quite nice, although the end is very nigh I think. Anyway, cue picture of blossom in the park:

We went to Lake Toya on Sunday, just for a night. We found a good internet deal at Manseikaku, which has some very good onsen baths, including in-room kaiseki dinner and buffet breakfast, free bus from Sapporo station and a room upgrade. The room was amazingly large, with an 8-mat tatami area, a sitting area by the windows complete with sofa and armchair (this doesn't sound that special, but for us the luxury of sitting on something like that is almost unparalleled!), Western-style bedroom, toilet, outer bathroom and inner bathroom with a cedar tub.
This is some of the kaiseki (we took it after the first round of courses came before we ruined it all - probably about another 6 or 8 dishes came after this but we were too busy eating by that point):
After dinner we watched the fireworks from our balcony - the display happens every night between April and October, and lasts about half an hour. The fireworks are set off by people in a couple of motorboats who make their way gradually across the lake, so that the display happens in front of all the hotels that apparently fund it.
(the thing lit up like a Christmas tree to the right of the fireworks is a cruise ship, made to look like a fairy tale castle...)

Pretty good. Anyway, that's all for now - I had to do this post to keep promises I made to some people but don't want it to drag on too long!

Today we decided to continue our go-to-new-places drive by going up Mount Moiwa. This is the highest mountain within very easy reach of the city, and one that we always see from our place. There's a cablecar to the summit, but we decided to walk it. It's not very high (1742 feet/531 metres apparently), but high enough to get a good walk and very good views from the top.We started from near the bottom cablecar station, near a large hospital, where a fairly popular path starts. This particular path is lined with groups of statues similar to the Maruyama route we did on Monday , except as well as jizo there are also kannon (the many armed Buddhist "goddess"), at 33 points all together - this is one of the first groups near the bottom:


It was a nice walk, but it was a lot warmer today, so although there was not quite as much as snow as on Maruyama, there was a lot of mud...now we know why everyone was wearing all the waterproof boot covers that we so mocked at first. Where there was snow tended to be in quite treacherous places - especially in the picture on the right. At this point on the path I saw a couple of people slipping worryingly near the edge - a very steep plunge down into a pretty scarey gully - despite all their hiking gear and sticks.

About halfway up the trail there's a rest and viewing point at a place called the "horse's back" (uma-no-se), which I think is a popular name for that kind of point at the top of a ridge on Japanese mountains. From here we took the fork of the path that led up to the summit, which didn't take too long to reach. It was strange to be walking in natural surroundings for a while and then suddenly emerge at the top station of the cablecar complete with vending machines, car park, bus stop and a souvenir shop packed with Hokkaido goods. The view from the roof was really good though. In the picture, the very small-looking round hill on the left is Maruyama:

After going back to the horse's back we decided to avoid the treacherous gully and went back down a different way, which came out in Asahiyama park - one of the many places around Sapporo built to commemorate it's centennial year. We were able to see our building from there, surprisingly close, so then we managed to find an almost dead-straight route back.

It's a nice place to spend a few hours on a sunny day, just picnicking (as long as you watch out for the kites!) or playing games as there's lots of grass, and some interesting Nogichi exhibits to see inside the Glass Pyramid (this is not a total pyramid by the way, but does have a cooling system which uses snow stored up during the winter).







It feels a little bit hollow and bland though in some ways, mainly because it's so new and not matured yet. I'm doubtful about the quality of some of the materials used to build it too - a lot of the concrete paving slabs seem to be loose and chipped already.

Just before 4, we heard an echoing announcement coming from beyond a group of young pine trees, and noticed that people seemed to be streaming towards the area. We realised that the giant fountain show (Sea Fountain) was going to start - that was pretty good, but it apparently looks better at night or when the pond is full of water.

Anyway, it was good to finally go there, and it's not bad for a place which is built on a rubbish dump!

By the way, it's Golden Week at the moment. Our fourth. Looking back to last year, we did very similar things, taking the opportunity of several consecutive holidays to clean the place and get rid of a lot of accumulated bits and pieces.

Cherry blossom report: most trees have fairly well developed green buds now. I'd say several more days and they should be open...